The UN Security Council will consider the situation in the Georgian breakaway republic, even though the separatist region's chief representative was denied a U.S. entry visa, the ministry said earlier.
By withholding a visa for Abkhazia's Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba, the U.S. State Department "has effectively blocked an informal meeting between the Abkhazian representative and members of the UN Security Council ahead of negotiations to harmonize the text of a new resolution on the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict," it said.
The council session will be convened in the wake of reports from Tbilisi March 13 of three villages in the north of Kodori Gorge, a territory in Abkhazia controlled by the central Georgian authorities, being shelled by artillery and helicopter gun ships.
Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli will attend the session, while Abkhazian Foreign Minister Sergei Shamba, who has Russian citizenship, has been denied a U.S. visa. Russia, a permanent UN Security Council member, has said the denial is "discriminatory."
"Both the Abkhazian and Georgian sides have been officially recognized as equal, and therefore they should have the right to present their positions directly to those who are trying to resolve the problem," Vladislav Chernov, the Russian envoy for the conflict, said.
Abkhazian President Sergei Bagapsh suffered from angina Monday and arrived in Moscow for treatment Tuesday morning. He was expected to attend a summit of the post-Soviet breakaway republics of Georgia and Moldova April 10-11.
At the New York session, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will deliver a report on the progress of the Russian-sponsored resolution passed last October. The document urged Georgia to withdraw from northern Kodori and ruled to extend the Russian peacekeeping mission in Abkhazia until April 15.
The session will study the possibility of extending the mandate of the UN observer mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) for another six months, and of bringing the two conflicting sides to the negotiating table.
The Western-leaning Georgian authorities are seeking to replace Russian peacekeepers, who have been in Abkhazia since the early 1990s, with an international contingent. Georgia accuses the Kremlin of supporting its breakaway regions. Most Abkhazians hold Russian citizenship.
